Watch for US prisoners, Shannon staff are told

Staff working at Shannon Airport are being pressed to report any evidence they see of trafficking of prisoners by the US military.

It follows the discovery by a cleaner last Sunday of a manacled soldier on board a US civilian aircraft at the airport. The incident has proved highly embarrassing for the Irish government, which had always accepted assurances that no such traffic passed through its airports.

Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern has now signalled that gardai may carry out random checks of US planes using the airport, but in the absence of any concrete decision human rights groups have asked staff at Shannon to report anything out of the ordinary.

'Only for the vigilance of one worker, we still wouldn't know for certain what we have long suspected - that prisoners are been transported through Ireland by the American authorities,' said Fintan Lane of the Irish Anti-War Movement. 'We are now depending on staff at Shannon to report more incidents. It's the only way we can find out what is being carried on US military aircraft at this point.'

Amnesty International said Ireland had to regain control of its airspace and territory. The call came as the organisation released a report detailing cases of transportation of suspects by the US military involving seven European states.

The US embassy in Dublin said the manacled soldier had been prosecuted for stealing under the military code and was being transferred from Kuwait to the US to serve his sentence. It apologised for its failure to inform the Irish authorities.

But Amnesty said there was no way to know if the incident was an isolated one, and urged the government to begin inspections of US military and civilian aircraft. 'Ireland's skies and airports are excessively open to US flights, and the government can no longer blindly trust in its flawed procedures and diplomatic assurances,' said Amnesty's Irish secretary-general, Colm O'Cuanachain.

It was ground staff at Shannon who also leaked information that US military aircraft landing there were carrying arms, in contravention of Irish law. Previously the government had said it was satisfied with American denials, but it was forced to back down when airport workers came forward to say they had frequently seen munitions on board flights bound for Iraq.

Shannon features prominently on a number of international Muslim websites, where its role in supporting the war in Iraq is called into question. A Muslim cleric has already warned that the continued use of the airport by the American army makes Ireland a legitimate target. Speaking on a visit to Dublin last November, Anjem Choudray said al-Qaeda would be justified in plotting atrocities in Ireland because the state 'aids and abets' US campaigns by allowing US forces to use Shannon airport.

Ahern said this weekend that he still accepted US government assurances that the airport was not being used for the extraordinary rendition of prisoners.